When Parroting the Dead
by Allymp3
Summary: Isolated but never alone, Lottie panics when Nightwing comes through her window, telling her she smells of death. Meanwhile, Susan, the parrot, just wants to fire James. A/B/O Dynamics, not that they matter much. Warning: contains some gruesome imagery. One-shot.


Everyone who said you only have five senses was wrong. By Lottie's count, you had six at the very least (she had more, but that's kind of a Lottie-thing from what she could tell).

The sixth one went something like this: it burrowed into your stomach like a frisky squirrel, preened your arm hair to stand up like a scared cat, splashed goose bumps like Nascar race cars across your spine, and flitted your veiled eyes to every dark corner like the world was a horror show and you the doomed protagonist. It stole sleep, it stole friends, it stole common sense as you attempted to tap into that distant Romani family member's genes trying to read every nearby person's soul _because goshdarnit someone was out to get you and you needed to know who_.

Yeah, Lottie's suffered through that sixth sense screeching for a solid week now.

Needless to say, she was a bit delirious from lack of sleep. Her coffee only got her so far, which was probably how she ended up deciding to walk home without an escort.

As an unmated alpha, it's an unrecommendable choice. As an unmated beta, it's a possibly problematic one. As an omega (mated or unmated, but even more so if unmated), it's a terrible choice that will most likely get your butt hauled into an alleyway by some slimy-handed jerk looking for a quick fix. Then there's the fact that this was Gotham. So, multiply all that by 100 and you've got the odds of Lottie getting home without an incident.

But maybe she didn't care.

Maybe safety didn't slip her mind at all, maybe she was just so tired of everyone and everything, safety be damned. Maybe, just maybe, just this once, she just wanted to sniff the city air. She desired to fill her lungs with Gotham's thick smoke, that beautiful swirling miasma that would undoubtedly give her cancer one day. She craved to strut down the dark street piled with trash and swarming with this summer's legion of flies. She needed to experience this city life _without _someone watching over her shoulder, asking if she's ok nonstop, trying to persuade her to move out into the country.

("…You poor thing, fresh air is much better suited for omegas like you. My brother has a son out there who is an unmated alpha…").

Then, it was decidedly not her baggy eyes or her drooped, sunburnt shoulders that weighed down her decision-making skills when she set her true course of action. She plucked a handful of spearmint leaves and two red chili peppers off their branches. She mashed and ground them together. The homely plant nursery where she worked wouldn't mind, and she was the manager of the herbal sector, anyhow. She rubbed a glob of the pungent goo on the scent glands behind her ear and on her wrists, and she was off.

No one would think she's an omega now- though what they thought her to be was a mystery. This stuff didn't smell like your typical sweet, home-baked goods omega, sure; but it didn't smell sharp and spicy like an alpha (too minty), or watery and fresh like a beta. If anything, she smelled like an alpha with a terrible taste in cologne.

Lottie hated perfume and cologne.

Pushing the thought aside, Lottie left the nursery out the backdoor, locking it behind her. She took a step out onto the cracked sidewalk, then another, and another. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows on the side walk and burnt holes through Gotham's persistent smog. Lottie adored it.

Not too many people were out, so most didn't look her way twice, except a couple that got too close. Their noses crinkled- so the concoction may have smelled a bit nasty- but otherwise she received no special attention, no sleazy and/or concerned glances. No one gave her fleeting touches, longing looks, or weather conversations. She didn't smell like the "helpless" omega, so who cared?

Lottie basked in her lonesome travel. Was this what it was like to be an alpha or beta?

It would have been so good if not for the paranoia drew her home like a hooked fish. She kept her pace brisk. She swore she saw shadows on the rooftops and monsters in the sewer grates. She trembled at what she saw in the alleyways- but that was nothing new.

Lottie climbed the small steps to her meager once red-bricked (looked browner and grimier now) apartment building and took the stairs up to her floor. Neat little metallic numbers graced every chipped wooden entryway. Her neighbor's door cracked open just a bit because the standard lock was too small for the frame. The only thing keeping it closed was a small door chain; one of Lottie's apartment's windows was like that.

She fumbled with the keys and tucked herself inside her apartment, locking the door behind her. She sniffed.

Her mother must have scent-marked the entire house again… at least her mother smelled like apple-spice. A landscape designer alpha that came by the nursery often smelled like those little red cinnamon ball candies. It was awful, and she avoided him with a passion. Luckily, the herb section that she tended with such care didn't usually catch his attention, so there was no need.

Apple-spice, however… it enveloped Lottie soon as she walked inside like a cozy blanket, and as wrapped around her shoulders, that sixth sense left. The hairs on her arm stood down as the goosebumps packed up their drum sets and went to sleep.

Lottie made way for the sink and scrubbed the goo off her, making sure to remove all traces of it so that when her mother came home she wouldn't pester Lottie. She then watered all the plants on her fire escape and inside her home, which was quite the itinerary.

She fed her mother's pet parrot, an African grey named Susan. Susan was actually a guy, but by the time they figured that out Susan had already learned his name and repeated it to a thousand guests, so they didn't try to change it.

"Hello Susan." Lottie put up the bird feed.

Susan swung on the little perch in his cage. His head tilted, and he croaked, "Hello Little Lottie. How was your day now?"

She shut the pantry and adjusted the lock on it. If they didn't lock the pantry, Susan would get into it then get sick from eating too much. Fat parrot. "Good, yours?"

"I wanna fire James!" Susan squawked, repeating Lottie's mother's tirade from two days before, "He never turns in paperwork on time!"

Lottie closed the apartment window best she could. Once she got it to the point that Susan couldn't crawl out, she stepped back. "That's good to hear."

Susan flapped around in his cage, beating on the barred door. "Fire James! Fire James! You hear me? Fire James!"

"Sure." Lottie unlocked the cage and let him out.

He was house-trained, but they still couldn't trust him to be alone in the apartment because he would sometimes get stuck in the space behind the refrigerator.

Lottie started making spaghetti for her mother. She burnt it on accident, so instead they would dine on cereal and Caesar salad that night. Her mother prayed to God every night that Lottie's mate would have the ability to cook. It seemed a smaller miracle than Lottie actually learning.

Lottie opened the window, using the rotator fan to keep the smoke away from the detector and usher it out of the house. Predictably, Susan dove out of the window, a flurry of grey streaking past her and into the greyer smoke. "Bye bye, Lottie! Time for work, have a nice day, hugs and kisses!"

Lottie lunged forward to grab his tail but only succeeded in face-planting onto the fire escape. She banged on the black grated metal. "You get back here right this instant, Susan! Susan!"

Lottie shoved herself back through the window into the apartment. She threw open the lock to the pantry and dragged the treats back out. "Susan! Susan? Want a yum-yum? SUSAN!"

Her mother was going to kill her. She waved the treat bag around on the fire escape like a soldier waving a surrender flag. "SUSAN! Please!"

"This squawking feather-bag yours, miss?"

Lottie turned around. Susan screeched and clawed at the net that the man held. He perched on the roof, a blue V stripe painted across his armored chest. A playful frown tugged at his cheeks. Then he smiled, showing off pearly whites and a dimple to the right of his lip.

Nightwing.

"Fire James! Fire James, Lottie baby!" The indignant parrot, even in its predicament, would not shut up.

Lottie shifted her weight from foot to foot. She knew this man was no threat to her- she was far from criminal, even if she felt like a Black Gate escapee after her walk- but she still wanted him gone as soon as possible. Even if she was grateful, the marking on his chest attracted trouble. Plus, he undoubtably had better things to do.

Her eyes skittered to the left and to the right, then settled down on the ground. She held her hands out. "Thanks. I'll put him back into his cage, then give you the net back."

He handed her the feathered mess. "Sounds great to me. I'll wait on the fire escape, if you don't mind."

Lottie shrugged and went inside. She dumped the bird in its cage- when her mother asked later, the tale would quell any lecture on Susan's need for exercise- and slammed the door shut. The bird shook the cage, banging himself against it. "Little Lottie! Little Lottie! Gonna fire James!"

"This James guy can't get a break," Nightwing peaked into her apartment, head hanging upside down and hair flopping with every movement.

Lottie shrugged, not finding it within herself to speak. She did her best to untangle the net before she handed it back. Her hands shook. Nightwing, still hanging from the ledge above her window, beamed at her like a full moon in the Gotham sky- not surprisingly, given that the young man was in part famous for his easily-earned smiles, a rare trait among Gotham's Bat population.

"Thanks! Hey, uh," His head tilted. "You smell a little funny for an omega. Not—not bad, you still smell good, but…" He scratched his head, "Just, you ok there?"

Lottie paled, but she nodded. "I'm fine. The bird just stressed me out a little." She picked up the treats and moved to put them back in the pantry. "Mom will deal with it when she gets back."

"No, you really- there's something off." He flipped so he was standing on her fire escape instead of just hanging by the ledge. His left foot almost landed in the red clay planter full of germinating pea plants, but with a grace only skill brought he tilted his footing so that his right side pointed to her, and his left side to the rest of Gotham.

Lottie looked at him with wide eyes. Her bottom lip trembled.

When she washed that goo off, she must have washed the smell-dampening scent cream off too! Normally it wouldn't matter, her mother never brought anyone home, but then this stranger came…

"Hey, hey- nonono no. I'm not here to make you afraid." Nightwing put his hands in a surrender position. Lottie knew that meant nothing. Her hands shook like a dog drying itself. She took a step back.

He lowered one hand as slow as grieving soldier would lower the flag to half-mast. He held it out to her, palms up and open. "I just wanna help. It's ok."

"I don't need any help. Please leave." She chose a spot on the ground to stare at and refused to move her eyes upward.

Susan squawked, beating against his cage. "Lottie baby! Lottie baby! Who you talking to, Lottie baby?"

Lottie's face turned into the shade of rarified meat. She glanced at the bird, whose body bobbed back and forth as he swung on his perch. The bird, it seemed, had picked up on the word "help"- a common word of controversy in her home. She hoped Susan would stay quiet but knew better.

Nightwing ignored the parrot. "No- you're sick. You need help. Where's your alpha?"

She wasn't sick. No sicker than she had been when it started. That sweet, copper scent came from those watching her, not her herself. On her own, she smelled of apple pie. But she didn't have the words to explain, and she wasn't sure that she should even if she could, so she said instead: "Mother's at work."

"Lottie baby, this isn't healthy, Lottie baby!"

Lottie wished Nightwing never found the bird. She wished the parrot had flown away and died of carbon monoxide poisoning or something even more horrible.

Nightwing stepped into her home. "Listen… how about we wait for your mother? I promise not to intrude too much, but something's definitely wrong and I've got time before dark, so you won't be a bother, I'm not even really supposed to be out right-"

"No!" Lottie's fists clenched. Her nails clawed into her palms. Her eyes never moved up from the ground except to glance whenever he moved. She hugged herself. "Please, just go away."

"Lottie," He hunched over, probably to make himself seem smaller. The blue V on his chest shone to bright against the black. He looked every out of place in the hob-knob apartment, with its earthy tones and plant nooks and treasured trinkets. "You… you smell like death."

Her nostrils flared. She didn't speak. The squawking sacrilege kept no such silence. "Lottie baby, stop talking to them. We need to get you help! Fire James!"

Nightwing moved back to keep his distance. He sat on the sill of her window, not quite in the house but not quite out either. "Who's them?"

"No one." Not anymore. She'd asked for them to stop six weeks ago, and they'd complied. She hadn't been able to sleep since. She counted on one day learning to be okay with that fact that she'd asked them away, okay with the fact that they hadn't fought it, okay with the fact that they still watched from a distance. She wondered what they thought of this.

"Lottie Baby," The parrot croaked. It tilted his grey head and blinked. "Don't you want to get better?"

There's nothing wrong with her. There's nothing wrong with her. Nothing wrong. With her.

Lottie shivered and pulled up a chair, the one with green velvet cushions that she loved to run the pad of her finger over, to the kitchen table. She curled herself up and decided to wait this out. Whatever this was. "I'm fine, thank you."

Nightwing frowned but didn't say anything. After all his smiles, and small grins, then thin lips, the frown was so pronounced that it set her off center. Thus, in a way, the frown said everything. Lottie hugged herself closer and wanted him out more than anything, but he remained vigilant sitting on the sill. Didn't he have something better to do?

He spoke in quiet, soft tones. "When will your mother get home?"

"I'm not dying." Lottie peaked at him from over her knees. She wanted to tell him that other people would if he didn't get back out there, but she felt small as it was and talking to a stranger would only made it worse. That sixth skin crawled across her skin again

\- _they were watching they were close they wanted to be heard they were crying they were screaming_-

"Okay." Nightwing slipped out, back onto the fire escape. He squatted on it, leaning his head of the sill. Lottie's shoulders relaxed a little as the fight in her drooped away, like a cat dragging to bed. He asked his next question, still in that tone, coaxing and comforting as warm, buttered bread. "Are they?"

Lottie felt the color return to her cheeks and she fidgeted; she looked to the left. But Nightwing stayed there, symbol shining, patient and calm, waiting. Compared to the man in grey behind him, Nightwing felt safe to her.

The man leaned against the back of the stairway, skin as grey as paper and hair darker than ink. He looked like an ink picture that water had got to, with certain parts of him brighter than others, and other parts of him stretched out and fading. His head was the clearest, with his eyes open and wide but clear. To the left of his right ear, a bit above his high eyebrows, an open pocketknife wound dribbled out black blood.

Lottie hugged herself tighter. Of course, they couldn't ignore this. They couldn't ignore _him_.

She lifted her eyes to meet Nightwing's, just so that she could be distracted from the look on the other man's face when she said, "No."

"Now, now, Lottie baby, Now, now." She'd almost forgotten about the stupid parrot that was way too good at talking. "Stop talking to them!"

The grey man strode forward, stepping right through Nightwing and the wall under the sill like a wave washing to shore. Nightwing didn't flinch. Lottie did. She hated it when they did that.

She knew that he must have known it wouldn't have any effect, but the grey man swatted at the parrot, striking right through him. The parrot reacted, fluttered about and screeching, "Healthy Lottie! Healthy! Get you help! Fire James!"

The grey man rolled his eyes and hit the parrot again. Now, Susan went quiet and still. Susan to the bottom of her cage, made choking noises, and then played dead.

Lottie glanced to the side. Nightwing remained still, head resting on the windowsill. His mask covered up whether he was watching her or not, but she felt like he was.

She wanted to go stand by him, but she was too scared to move, too scared to be walked through as if she was the one not existing. She wanted to speak, to tell him to come in, but the words choked up in her throat.

Both men noticed. The dead one came right up to her side. He bent down to whisper in her ear, as if another could hear. "It's okay. We're not mad, little Lottie."

Nightwing's shoulders hunched. His voice came out quicker now. "Lottie?"

"M'okay. I'm fine." Lottie squeezed her eyes shut and did her best to ignore the man with the bleeding head wound; the one who was trying to whisper in her ear again, but he kept leaning forward too far and accidently passing through her head instead, so that his voice went in and out like a flickering light bulb.

"He-he-hehe- co-co-cocou-"

A warm hand landed on her shoulder like honey on ice. Her eyes snapped open, and Nightwing was in her apartment, kneeling on the ground, his lips moving. "Lottie, what's wrong?"

His hand left her shoulder and she flinched because it was harder to not focus on the ghost, bobbing in and out of her head, touching her and invading her without doing either of those things.

Nightwing's fingers slid into her hand, which he gave a light squeeze every time her eyes skittered to the ghost. He started to say nonsensical things to get her to calm down, things about how pretty her apartment was and how precious every life is and how strong he was she sure was. His smile started to return, but there was a shadow in it this time.

Lottie didn't care about the people outside who needed saving anymore. She wanted Nightwing right here, babbling and holding her hand until the ghost went away, even if she could barely hear him over the own thumping of her heart and the stuttering whispers of the dead.

Her mother had gotten the parrot, hoping Susan would distract Lottie from the "ghosts" she was seeing. But Susan got just as scared as Lottie when he figured out what was going on.

But Nightwing was here. He wasn't dead or pretending to be dead. That was nice. So, she clutched his hand and did her best to hold onto that warmth that meant he was alive, that she was alive, even if the others weren't.

Because there were others now. Slipping in. An old woman, with blood matted into her hair, wrapped in blackened newspapers, sprawled across her fire escape. A young woman, coughing up black blood, by the couch. A stout man with a bullet between his brow. Whispers, shouts, screams.

It wasn't always like this. It's not normally like this. She shouldn't have asked them to leave.

A girl came in through the door, walking right through the wooden frame. She left little black footprints wherever she went. Her intestines were falling out of her stomach, and one stretched high up and knotted around around her small neck. She looked at Lottie, eyes dead, and opened her mouth to speak, but only a tiny tongue flopped out.

Lottie started to cry. Nightwing leaped up to hold her, and Lottie was so thankful that Gotham had at least one hero like him. She clung to him, but she couldn't tear her eyes off the girl.

Nightwing was talking again, something about "Meta," and "paranormal" and "confirmation," but it was hushed and urgent and didn't seem to be directed to her. Lottie just shivered and wept as the girl tried to tug her grey intestine off the pale expanse of her neck.

The girl prattled closer. The small, black footprints disappeared after every couple steps, but the black blood running from her open stomach down her legs did not. Lottie pushed herself further into Nightwing's hold just to escape the image.

The girl stopped, less than a foot away. The first ghost, the man who was stabbed in the head, stumbled back as he saw her. Everyone hated looking at the children, even the oldest phantoms.

Normally the kids roamed in packs, taking care of each other in a way the other ghosts just didn't, because children don't understand that they're dead. But this one, with her intestine wrapped around her neck and her little tongue wagging, was alone. She must have scared off the others. She must know she's dead.

Slowly, with great effort, the girl pulled the intestine by the knot off her neck enough that her tongue went back in her mouth and she could speak. Lottie shook and clutched her own neck as she watched, but Nightwing tapped her wrists until her hands lowered. He continued to whisper things about home and love and life that she couldn't make out.

The girl's voice creaked like a leaky sink, each syllable wheezing and groaning into one broken word. "Detective?"

Oh. _Oh_.

That's why she didn't recognize them. That's why they didn't stay away. That's why they were so gruesome.

They followed him around.

Lottie wiped her eyes and pulled away from Nightwing. She hugged herself and looked at the ground, at the stained brown carpet. She pulled at it with the tips of her toes. She glanced up at all the ghosts- the two women, two men, and the girl- then at the man they stored their hopes in.

Nightwing waited, his thumb still stroking the back of her hand, staying close but not entirely invading her comfort zone again. Through the white film of his bright blue mask, she could barely make out the forms of pupils and irises, looking straight back at her.

His eyes, unwavering and still, gave her enough confidence for one word to bubble up. "N-Nightwing?"

The girl sat at Lottie's feet, and a black pool gathered under her thighs and bum. The others started to follow, forming a line, waiting to finally, finally be heard, eyes like lanterns. Which was good, because Lottie thought she might be finally ready to speak.

"I see dead people."


End file.
